ideas for iphone reader

[radioman]

I do not know if this is just for the Reader, probably for flashcards as well. But since I am trying to solve a reader problem I will put the item here.

I have not spent a lot of time with various means of how to get data into the Pleco Reader, but I see now that Dropbox in fact offers a direct HTML link to their files.
so, in my case, I put a UTF-8 file there, emailed myself the link for convenience.

Pleco's browser basically read the file in and stored it locally after I tell it that the file is UTF-8.

 

[mikelove]

Could you clarify this a bit? What exactly is happening that you aren't expecting to happen? Saving text files locally is actually what we do by design; you can get to them via the "Document Files" section of Reader.

 

[radioman]

What is unexpected is that I am actually getting some of this to work - sorry if I gave the impression there is a problem as there is not.

And yes, I see how the files are being locally saved - very cool.

Anyway, I have two so far that do not involve Wifi per se where I am successfully importing to Pleco.

1) Dropbox - if I put a text file there, I can import via Pleco's Browswer by dropping a file into my Dropbox public folder. From there, right mouse clicking will give the public http direct path to the file or folder. At least for me in China, I need to change the Dropbox public link to HTTPS rather than HTTP.

2) Sending myself an email from my Desktop - that works as well.

I am still looking at these and some other things.

 

[mikelove]

Great! The big remaining issue really is how to get files off of people's iPhones, particularly apropos for flashcards. At least initially we'll probably just do this with email attachments and the embedded web server, particularly given that iPhone OS 3.2 (per published reports) has support for copying files between device and desktop over USB, but down the line we might also want to investigate adding support for HTTP uploads.

 

[radioman]

I have been experimenting with programs, pages, etc. and importing into the reader. There are a few usabililty things that make swapping over to Pleco that I think could provide a more smooth utilization (to the extent it is desired to support). In no particular order.

1) Landscape mode - When in landscape, and start Pleco, the splashscreen comes up portrait, then the initial screen for Pleco (e.g., Reader screen) - then everything rotates. I am wondering if there is a way to have Pleco sense that it is being initiated in landscape and start in that mode.

2) Pasteboard Importing 1 - I have the reader set to kick off if there are 4 or more characters in the pasteboard when starting Pleco. No problem there, except for the points highlighted in (1) above. However, when I have 1 or 2 or 3 characters in the pasteboard, it starts in the dictionary, with the following issues: (1) the landscape issues noted above, and (2) the dictionary comes up ready to enter text. So if its in HWR mode, the whole screen gets taken up with the writing area. Similar for the keyboard, if that is the initial starting point. My thought is that when starting the program with info in the pasteboard that kicks off in the dictionary, that the program should start with a display mode, not like it is ready to input more text.

3) Pasteboard Importing 2 - I would like to see a pasteboard refresh in the reader. I know this has been requested before with some concern about providing a feature that is apparently for jailbroken phones. However, with there already a "write to clipboard" feature, I am figuring, why not a "read to clipboard" feature.

4) Hidden Bar - When utlizing the reader, i would like to see at least the bottom bar disappear. Then, if someone wants to use the bottom bar, they tap the top bar and it reappears. I have seen other programs handle the bar in this way, and it handles pretty naturally. It provides the benefit of not accidently hitting an icon on the bottom bar when you are simply reading through an extended document, as well as providing the additional benefit of more screen real estate for the text.

 

[mikelove]

Thanks for the feedback.

On #1, there's unfortunately no way that we can force the orientation on startup to match the current device orientation, at least not without using an undocumented API - it is possible to tell the iPhone's OS that your app should always be opened in one orientation or another, but there's no system in place yet for getting it to just use whatever the current device orientation is. There's hope this might improve in the future, though, thanks to iPad and its policy of requiring applications to always work in both orientations.

On #2, if you disable "Open input" under "Startup Search" in Settings / General but leave "Insert Pasteboard" enabled, that should get the dictionary to behave the way you want, searching for the contents of the pasteboard but not opening up the input bar.

The reader should get a lot of improvements in the first major post-flashcards release, and hiding the control bars is definitely high on the priority list - lots of other document readers have managed to do it and so should we.